Fresh start

Today is a milestone for me.

During college, I had an idea for a website and stumbled across WordPress. I began to tinker. I fell more in love with the method for making the site than the site itself.

I went on after college to work as an outside Sales Engineer. I worked for a great company, and enjoyed the work and my time there. But I realized at some point that it wasn’t the career for me for the next thirty+ years.

I slowly became more involved in WordPress development. I spent my free time making hobby sites, wedding websites for friends, tinkering with themes and generally just messing around. I learned a ton.

In September of last year, I started to write about WordPress too. I started investing time in learning best practices, following prominent community members, respected companies, and generally inhaling as much information as possible. I was addicted. I AM addicted. I wrote basic tutorials and beginner’s guides. I wrote about community news. I got to know people. I got to know WordPress.

My hobby evolved to a point that I felt it was a career I wanted to pursue. Between my desire to be in Birmingham more and travelling less, and my growing sureness that my hobby was something I would enjoy full time, the next step started to become more clear.

By “next step”, I basically mean leaving my job and doing web development. HOW to do that web development was not clear at all. Do I freelance full time? Apply for a position at a firm? Create a product? I had no idea.

And then while not attempting to look at all, the answer fell in front of my face. I saw an advertisement for a well respected Birmingham web design firm that was looking for a “WordPress guru” in Birmingham. I felt obliged to at least send an email.

One week later I was offered a job. Today is my first day at Infomedia.

Leaving my other job was not easy. I was fairly comfortable, worked with great people and for an extraordinarily good company. But sometimes you just know it’s right.

I cannot thank some people enough:

• The Lord. He is good.
• My wife for believing in me and supporting me in all of my decisions.
• My family for support and encouragement.
• The WordPress community for offering such a plethora of knowledge via many venues.

I won’t lie and say I’m not nervous. I’m nervous for certain, but hopefully in a good way. I’m excited for a new journey. I’m ready to turn a passion into my career. I’m ready to further my learning.

I’m ready to work with WordPress full time.